Bad Luck and Bookshelves
by more-than-words
Summary: Ruth does some DIY and Harry has a proposition. Fluff and nonsense.


**Disclaimer: I think it's probably fairly obvious that I don't own Spooks. This is undoubtedly for the best. **

**This is not to be taken in any way seriously. It's been one of THOSE days and I was in need of fluff, so knocked this up in about three seconds. This means there are sudden lurches of topic and it might well be mad, but then… I can spend weeks faffing about with stuff and it still comes out crazy. Might as well embrace it, right? Hope you enjoy the (mostly) fluff! **

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><p>She wasn't normally one to moan about her lot, but Ruth was starting to think that a good rant might do her some good. After all, no one could deny the fact that she'd had some monstrously bad luck in her time.<p>

Getting in trouble for crimes she hadn't committed and ending up in exile – that was catastrophically bad, in all sorts of ways that didn't just involve luck (or lack of it). Coming back to Britain under the circumstances that she had hadn't been great, either. Getting herself stuck with a mad assassin, a man from the council and an iron – not her favourite hour. And, while Harry's slightly morbid proposal at a funeral was more a case of bad timing and questionable delivery than bad luck, her current state of mind meant that she was feeling inclined to lump it in with the rest.

Oh, and not forgetting all the crap that happened with Lucas.

She'd dealt with it all, though. She prided herself on always been able to pick herself up and carry on, no matter what happened and, with the exception of a few little wobbles, she'd mostly managed quite well.

It seemed, though, that ultimately all it took to make her lose her composure was something unbelievably minor in comparison to everything else. She had been making the most of her Saturday off by putting up her new bookshelves in the living room. It all started well; she got the shelves up on the walls and didn't even end up with any mystery, inexplicable screws left over when she'd finished – a DIY job well done.

But apparently the new bookshelves weren't designed to take the sort of weight she'd put on them, because as she was precariously stacking a copy of _Possession_ on top of _The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_, the whole lot trembled and then suddenly crashed down around her. At first she was glad that she'd managed to jump out of the way in time, but the shock had made her clumsy and she stumbled backwards, tripping over the edge of a shelf that had performed a fairly impressive acrobatic manoeuvre and then went tumbling to the floor, landing in a heap on top of all her books.

Ruth lay there, thinking that maybe Beth had been right when she'd suggested that Ruth might want to get a Kindle rather than building her very own library in the living room. _That's a disaster waiting to happen,_ she'd said. _I can just imagine the fire now. The insurance people would probably say it was your own fault._ At least Beth had moved out so she wasn't there to see her prophesy coming sort-of true.

Naturally, just when Ruth had given in to the urge to cry and was wishing one of the novels currently digging into her back would just swallow her up and take her to another, made-up, hopefully happier world, her phone rang. She thought about ignoring it, but she couldn't break the habit of a lifetime. She pulled it from her pocket, wincing as she did so. Apparently books weren't that great at breaking a person's fall.

"Hello?"

"Ruth?" It was Harry. Of course. Who else would call her when she was in such a state?

"Yes." Her breath was coming out in stutters and her heart was still racing, the noise of it thundering in her ears. She raised one shaky hand to her head, hoping it might steady her – and that Harry wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"I was just calling to… Ruth, are you okay?"

She took a couple of deep breaths before answering him, trying to extricate herself from the mountain of wood and paper at the same time. "Yes." She moved her left leg and it caused a minor avalanche of books by or about Shakespeare. "Ouch."

"What's happened?"

"Nothing." She staggered to her feet and then away from the mess, collapsing down into an armchair. She wiped a hand across her face and it came away wet with tears.

"You're crying."

"No, I'm not." The strangled tone of her voice somewhat gave away the fact she was lying.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing."

"Tell me or I'm coming over there now."

She knew he wasn't kidding and while the thought of him in her house might've been something she'd been thinking about with increasing frequency of late, this particular scenario had never entered into any of those thoughts. She decided to answer him in the hope it would keep him from coming over and seeing the disaster zone that was her living room – and her. "It's really stupid. I was putting books on my new bookshelves and they all collapsed. Then I fell over them, which is why it's stupid." Ruth held the phone away from her ear for a moment so she could indulge in a sob that had lodged itself in her throat.

When she returned her attention to the phone, Harry was talking. "… are you hurt?"

"Not really. Um. No. Just a bit shaky."

"Sure?"

She was distracted by a thin line of blood originating from a monumental paper cut running down her arm and so she didn't answer him.

"I'm coming over there," Harry said. "Stay put."

He hung up the phone before she could respond. Ruth sat there with her phone in one hand, staring disconsolately at all her lovely books in a heap on the floor, some of them probably ruined by her stupid flat-pack Ikea bookshelves (_why_ hadn't she just gone to John Lewis for some 'proper' ones like she'd wanted to in the first place?). She decided to take Harry's advice and to not move from the armchair until he got there. She also decided that if he made a single comment about her DIY skills, she would kill him with a mangled wall bracket.

OoO

By the time the doorbell rang half an hour later, Ruth was feeling much calmer. She had cried solidly for ten minutes and then spent the rest of the time feeling a bit sorry for herself and wondering how in the name of all that was holy she was going to set about re-organising her miniature library. She hadn't got anywhere with that conundrum, but it had helped to have something to occupy her mind, distracting her from the fact that Harry was coming over and she was a mess.

Still, she supposed, he'd seen her in worse states.

At the sound of the bell, she gingerly got up from her chair and went to let him in. She opened the door and then went back down the hall without even saying _hello,_ heading to the kitchen to put the kettle on. If she was going to have to face him, she wasn't doing it without a cup of tea.

She stood by the kettle and listened to Harry shutting the door. She heard him walk down towards the kitchen and then stop in the doorway to the living room. She imagined the expression on his face when he saw the state of the room. It lifted her mood slightly.

Ten seconds later, he appeared in the kitchen, standing behind her and taking the mugs she was holding from her hands, setting them down on the counter. "I don't even get a hello?" he said.

She didn't look at him, instead opening the fridge and pulling out the milk. "Sorry, Harry. Hi. Thanks, um, thanks for coming."

"Of course," he said quietly.

Ruth could feel him watching her and eventually gave in, turning to face him, inwardly cursing as she realised she had yet to visit a mirror to find out how blotchy her face was from the tears and the exertion.

"You've bumped your head." Harry's hands were suddenly holding her face, his fingers gently probing a bump on her forehead that she hadn't felt.

Until now. "Ow."

"Sorry." His thumb stroked gently over her skin, warm and smooth. "Why don't you go and sit down, hmm? I'll make the tea."

She nodded and did as she was told, for once quite appreciating the fact that he was in control of things so she didn't have to be. Ruth went and sat on the sofa in the living room, studiously keeping her gaze away from the part of the room that had started this whole thing.

Harry appeared before long with their tea and her first aid kit, newly liberated from one of her kitchen cupboards. He handed her a mug. "Hot and strong."

"Thanks." Ruth took a sip, enjoying the heat of it. Then she put down the mug on the coffee table next to Harry's and sat back to watch him faffing around with the first aid kit, pulling out antiseptic wipes and dislodging a roll of gauze in the process, sending it streaming across the floor.

Once he'd wrestled it back into the box, he took out an antiseptic wipe. He steadied her face with one hand and wiped over the little graze above her eye with the other. "That okay?"

His thumb gently stroking her chin was demanding most of her attention so it took a moment for her to answer. "Yes."

"Good." His hands dropped from her face and he looked at her expectantly. "Where else?"

"My pride, mainly," she muttered, but obligingly held out the arm that held the largest paper cut ever known to man and let Harry do the dirty with another wipe, trying to focus on the sting it created rather than how nice his hand felt as it held her elbow and then turned it to make sure he'd got all the blood off.

"Anywhere else?"

"Don't think so."

Harry nodded and put the packet of wipes back where he had found them. He left his hand on her elbow even as he put down the first aid box and picked up his mug of tea in its place. He glanced over at Ruth's postmodern book display. "Go on, then," he said encouragingly. "What happened?"

"What do you think?" She reached over for her own tea and took a mouthful. "I put too much faith in an Ikea MDF flat pack."

He nodded and, to his credit, wasn't patronising. "Easily done. In fact, I'm fairly certain that several of my most impressive scars have been caused by wayward do-it-yourself furniture."

Ruth laughed. It felt good and she felt her black mood starting to lift. "Yes, it should definitely come with better warning labels. Such as the fact that it's stupid to buy build-it-yourself bookshelves if you're planning to put more than three books on them."

"As long as you're all right, that's the main thing."

She nodded and decided not to mention the fact that she was far more worried about the state of some of her most precious books than she was a couple of bruises caused by her own idiocy. Besides, Harry probably already knew. Deciding she didn't want to talk about her most recent disaster anymore, Ruth changed the subject. "Why were you calling earlier? Is something wrong at work?"

Harry's hand on her arm tensed ever so slightly. "No, everything is fine. I was just calling to say…" He looked a little bit sheepish. "Actually I was just calling to say that I still have your cats. And I was wondering whether you wanted them back. I know it's a bit abrupt and it's been ages but it's only just occurred to me that I should probably return them. If you want them, that is."

Truth be told, Ruth had assumed that her cats must have died and Harry hadn't told her because he didn't want to upset her. She knew she should probably be a tiny bit annoyed that he hadn't returned them by now, two years after she came home from exile, but she could understand why he hadn't. It hadn't been as though the two of them were on the easiest of terms and bringing up custody of the cats would have been awkward. Ruth hoped that Harry making the offer today was a sign they were back on track – and not a sign that he was trying to evict her from his life in any way he could. But if he was trying to do that, why would he be here now? "Of course I do," she answered, realising he was still waiting for an answer. "Unless you want to keep them. I mean, I don't want to upset them by forcing them to move again. They probably wouldn't even remember me."

"Yes, they would." Harry sounded remarkably sure of that fact. "They pined for you for ages after you left and I swear they still regard me with suspicion because I'm not you." His face softened then and he shuffled closer to her. "You could come over and see them. See how they are and then decide what you think would be best for them."

She imagined sitting in Harry's house, playing with the cats while drinking tea and the thought of it made her face flush. "That sounds like a good idea."

"And…" Harry shifted on the sofa and suddenly became very interested in the dregs of his tea. "And you could maybe decide what you think would be best for you, too. I mean… You might decide that the cats are okay where they are and that, actually, you want to bring all your books over, too. After all, I do have proper bookshelves."

Ruth was fairly certain that he was saying what she thought he was saying, but she wasn't feeling up to making a fool of herself for the second time in one day and thought she'd better double check. "And what am I supposed to do when you've got my cats _and _my books in your house?" She had been trying to sound casual, but the vaguely flirty tone that actually came out seemed to be sitting well with Harry.

She could feel herself rapidly warming as he looked at her intently. "You know you're always welcome in my house, Ruth." Then he looked down and away just as abruptly as he had turned his gaze to her in the first place. "Sorry. I didn't mean… I wasn't intending to… proposition you today. I really was just calling about the cats. And I really did just come over because I was worried."

"But now that you have propositioned me, did you mean it?" She could hear her own desperation and she realised that she truly, badly wanted him to say _yes._ It was amazing, she thought, how the most ridiculous incident in the world could suddenly alter everything. Maybe the crap bookshelves would have some use, after all…

"You know I did," Harry said.

She nodded. "Yes, I did."

Ruth reached over and squeezed Harry's hand. She had been intending to let go straight after and give herself some space to collect her thoughts before responding, but his fingers wrapped tightly around hers, keeping her where she was. She decided that she might as well enjoy it, settling back against the sofa cushions and leaning her head back. She'd been intending to indulge herself in looking at Harry, but as she moved her head she caught sight of the bomb site in the corner and then couldn't quite manage to tear her gaze away from it. "Oh God, what a mess," she said, realising belatedly that he might take that as her response to his proposition.

Luckily, Harry was a man used to her oddities and he'd stuck with her through much worse than a potentially ill-judged sentence, so he caught on fairly quickly. He chuckled. "Mm, yes, I'm afraid I'd have to agree on that one."

"I suppose it's just further proof that I am a walking disaster zone."

"You're not a walking disaster zone."

She turned to him and raised one eyebrow.

"Well… not all of the time."

"Smooth," she replied. Then she took a deep breath. "Will you keep on holding my hand so at least when disaster strikes it won't be quite as bad?"

He didn't say anything but his lips pressing against her cheek told her that he most definitely would. "Come and see your cats," he said when he pulled away. "Come and… just come home with me."

Ruth was about to answer, to say _yes please,_ but it seemed Harry hadn't finished.

"And remind me to never, ever let you do the DIY."

She decided she'd get him with the mangled wall bracket while he was sleeping.

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><p><strong>Hmm yes. Not sure how the cats got in there. Oh well. They're wily creatures!<strong>

**Thanks for sticking with it! :)**


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